Existing User

Travelling and working in the Asia Pacific Region today is
always a wonderful experience. There are surprises in all fields,
especially in contemporary art. My meeting with Sora Kim, along
with some of her colleagues such as Gimhongsok, was one such
remarkable experience.

I met Kim at the opening dinner of the first Taipei Biennial in
1998. She didn't speak much and seemed a little shy, but what was
unquestionably memorable was her work, which I then saw for the
first time. Her piece was an Unlimited Concept Co. Cleaning
Dept. project entitled Very Up & Very Down. The
installation consisted of a pink truck equipped with a variety of
cleaning instruments and, next to it, a file containing a series of
documents recording cleaning activities within the city of Taipei.
The project was neither visually spectacular nor ideologically
sensational. It was simply a series of cleaning actions of
different urban spaces, from the city hall to supermarkets, museums
to restaurants...

As the catalogue text states:

As an artist, Kim Sora approaches her work with great
earnestness, but
this is not the only reason that we find such a fresh vitality in
her art.
Another factor is in actions related to the consciousness of the
other. We
are reminded that for an artist, the act of making art is an act of
introspection. It is the task of dusting, scrubbing stains and
clearing
away garbage. It is the act of cleaning, removing dirt. Any
interest in
other things is merely incidental. Moreover, Kim does not make use
of
any of the modern devices that liberate us from the hard physical
labour
of cleaning. That is

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